Someone Like Me
by mypetluke
Summary: What would happen if someone like me joined the swim club. No longer a one shot.
1. Chapter 1

I made my way out to the school pool. It was one day after that awful recruitment show that they made the first years sit through, but I already knew what I wanted to do. I adjusted my skirt as I walked through the changing room. Why was I the only one who wanted to join? And I'd be the first girl to ever join too, unlike at my old school, where the girls almost outnumbered the boys. It was still to cold to swim, but I figure I'll find someone from the swim club there. As I got closer, I saw that the whole team was in fact there. There was the manager, Gou-senpai, the breast stroke specialist Nagisa-senpai, the butterfly specialist Rei-senpai, the backstroke specialist Makoto-senpai, and the freestyle specialist Haruka-senpai.

"Um, excuse me." I said timidly approaching them. They all looked at me curiously, no doubt I wasn't exactly what they were expecting when they said they wanted new recruits. They probably wanted big, buff guys. Not brown haired girls who were short for their age.

"Yes, can we help you with something?" Gou-senpai asked, smiling at me. So she was the muscles fanatic, huh?

"Well, yes. You see, I'd like to join the swim club." For about a minute, they all just stared at me.

"You. Want to join the swim club? Like, _this _swim club?" Nagisa-senpai asked. Why did they all seem so shocked?

"Uh, yes, I do." Was it really that surprising? True, I was small for my age, but I was hardly weak or frail. And I'd been on the swim club for my old school too. "Why? Do you not allow girls on your team?"

"Oh, uh...no, we do. It's just that you don't really seem like the swimming type..." Makoto-senpai said, scratching the back of his head in a nervous gesture.

"I don't?" I asked, pouting, "but I've been on a team for four years! I was even on one of the highest ranking teams in the region with over 70 members!" They all just looked at me.

"You've been on a team before?" Rei-senpai asked. In my personal opinion, out of all of them, he seemed the least used to swimming, relatively new.

"Yes. I joined a high school level swim team in my second year of middle school and began doing meets with them as well as the less prominent summer swim team. I even went to regionals that very first year, ranked second in my heat, and was 1.564 seconds away from placing for the second day. After that I joined one of the best teams in the region, the SHARKS. That was shortly before my third year of middle school. I had done summer swim awhile before I actually joined an official team, but my records are still very good."

"That's a very interesting resume," Makoto-senpai said, looking me over. They all seemed more curious now, if not impressed, "what do you swim?"

"I swim all strokes although I'd have to say my least favorite is back," Makoto flinched, "I'm weakest at butterfly," Rei adjusted his glasses, "freestyle is ok," Haru looked confused, "and breaststroke is my favorite. It's also what I went to regionals for so I'd say its my best as well." Nagisa looked overjoyed.

"Really! What's your time?" He asked enthusiastically. Slinging his arm around my shoulders, I figured he'd be happy when he heard what my best stroke was, after all, breaststroke is one of the less popular strokes out there.

"My personal best in that stroke is 33.5." His eyes widened, as did his smile.

"That's really good! Uh, oh, we don't know your name yet."

"My name is Ushio Takahashi. I'm a first year. Nice to meet you all." I bowed

"Ushio, it means tide." Haruka-senpai pointed out.

"Yes, yes it does." I said smiling.

"So I take it you like water?" He asked, I could tell this was a serious question, but then again, the answer was easy.

"Yes," I admitted, "There's really nothing like it. It's like it erases all your worry and just lets you be...free, you know?" His eyes widened and I continued, "I've tried other sports before, but none of them really clicked like swimming did, I just felt like I belonged there, in the water." I finished my little rant and saw them all looking at me with knowing smiles. I giggled.

"Well Shio-chan, lets go get you an application form!" Nagisa-senpai said, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the direction of the teacher offices. The others laughed and followed us down the steps. I felt like I was really going to fit in here. Up ahead, there was a red haired guy standing under a tree staring at us.

"Rin-chan!" Nagisa-senpai called, "Meet our new recruit! Shio-chan!" He yelled, pointing at me.

"Shio-chan huh?" He said, touching the brim of his hat.

"I'm Ushio Takahashi, nice to meet you." I smiled.

"Kind of small, aren't you?" He asked with a teasing smile. I laughed. This group was so fun. They were smiling and joking with each other. This was gonna be the best! We arrived at the teacher's office, and found who was more than happy to have me on the team.

"Well now that you've joined, what now?" Makoto-senpai asked me, smiling.

"Hmmm, go swimming!" I said, grinning. All of them began laughing and my smile widened. This was gonna be a good year...

* * *

**I kind of think this is what I would do if I went to join the Iwatobi swim team. Oh, if only... As for any questions about swim protocol or anything, I'll answer them if you want me to. But the time she said was her best, is actually a decent time for that stroke, I know because that's actually my best time. I still got second though... *sigh* And yes, I did just use the name of the daughter from Clannad...which I'm watching right now. I really based this character off myself in a lot of ways. I was going to make this a full story, like with chapters and stuff, but then I'm like "ehhh...nah" That and I'm just lazy. Well, have a nice day! B-)**


	2. Chapter 2

1..2..3.. I kicked harder, making it to the wall for my flip turn. Counting my strokes, I made it past the flags on my streamline and back to the wall in 14 strokes. Slamming my hand into the wall almost hard enough to hurt, I gasped in air.

"Good job, 30.32." Gou called from her place on the side of the pool with a stop watch.

"Dang it." I muttered, pulling myself out of the pool. Still needed that time lower. I carefully pulled the cap off my head and threw it with my goggles into my bag, turning to look at the pool again.

"Your turn Haru!" Gou yelled, I turned to watch Haru hop on the block. "Ready...HUP!" Gou yelled, I watched in awe at his flawless dive, his perfect breakout, his astounding turnover rate, his awesome flip, his powerful dolphin kicks, and his...his really really good finish. "25.4!" Gou yelled.

"Argh!" I yelled as he pulled himself or of the water. "How do you do it?" I pouted, staring up at him and following his lead as he went to grab a towel.

"You've dropped 5 seconds on you're freestyle since starting the team." He pointed out, drying his hair. "The fact that you're over a foot shorter than me might play into that too."

"Not fair!" I said, stomping my foot in a childish way.

"Is too!" He said, throwing me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing in a rare display of playfulness. I squealed and struggled a bit, not enough for him to drop me, as he marched over to the pool.

I squealed when he threw me in, my hair was still in a bun, but several strands pulled loose and floated around my face. I kicked forward and did a breastroke pull. I felt like I was flying. Breaking the surface I pushed the hair out of my face and laughed.

"Hey! We're here to swim! Not mess around! Nagisa has to do his 50! Get out of the water!" Gou yelled from the side of the pool waving her arms at me. I swam to the edge and pulled myself out as Nagisa gave me a thumbs up from the block.

"So what are you swimming at the next meet?" Makato asked me once I'd grabbed my towel.

"Uh," I said, putting a finger to my chin, "the 200 back, 100 free, 50 free, 100 fly, and 100 breast." I told him, listing them off on my fingers. He nodded.

"Think you can handle all that?" Haru asked me. I smiled.

"I'm a little worried about that 200, and maybe the 100 fly, but everything else? I got this!" I told them, giving them both a thumbs up. They both smiled at me.

"Of, course you do." Makato agreed.

"But, that's no reason to slack off on your training." Rei scolded, adjusting his glasses. I raised an eyebrow in a smirk.

"Me? Slack off? But didn't you miss nearly every interval on the 100 and 50 set we did yesterday? And the intervals were 30 seconds to two minutes. You should have made them." I shook my head in mock disappointment. He stuttered, blushing.

I laughed at his flustered face as Nagisa climbed out of the water.

"I only swim butterfly, its not my fault!" Nagisa mimicked before he could say it himself.

"Hey!" We all laughed.

"Alright, 300 easy choice then you're done." Gou called. Not bothering with a cap, I pulled on my goggles and dove into the pool and began a lazy freestyle. Hearing splashing behind me, I felt a hand touch my foot. 'Oh great, they're already passing me. Its the first 25!" Glancing over, I saw Makato pull up next to me. I kept swimming, but his hand shot out and stabbed me in the side. Oh. My. God. I hate when they do that.

Kicking it up a little, I got to the right point and rolled over on top of him.

* * *

"I can't believe you did that." He pouted.

"I can't believe you had the audacity to stab me. Again. As if during meet warmups isn't enough already." We gathered our things into our bags, mine a blue Speedo bag with my name in red letters. Throwing it over my shoulder, I began to make my way to the girl's locker room. More commonly refered to as _my_ locker room.

"Hopefully you learned your lesson!" I called back to him.

"You nearly drowned me!" He exclaimed. I laughed, picking up my speed to a light run, knowing I had to go home and get some sleep for the meet tomorrow.

* * *

**There you are. A second chapter. I know it took way to long to write, but there wasn't originally supposed to be one. I know this is short, but the next chapter is a swim meet. And believe me when I say those things seem to last _forever_. I was at one yesterday actually. **

**I went second in the 200 medley relay (so I swam breaststroke), I swam the 100 freestlye and came in 3rd. My time for that was 1:13. One second off my best time, which was 1:12. Next I swam the 100 breaststroke and I dropped a second and came in 1st! Then I had a surprise relay. My coach forgot to tell me I was swimming in it, so I was already changed and everything, and he goes, "You know you're swimming in the next event right?"**

**Panic time! I speed changed, Zach had to go get my cap and goggles for me, he got the wrong ones, but I'm not complaining, then I ran out of the locker room with a bundle of clothes in my hand, still panicking, and started to run into the gym, but he stopped me and gave me my cap and goggles, I shoved the clothes into his arms and had to run back to hand him my glasses. And as I was running away I yelled**

**"I'm really sorry about this, hold those for me, kay thanks bye!" and he went and put them away for me. Then when I made it to the pool deck with my relay team, I had another surprise, we were swimming the 400 relay, not the 200. Oh joy. So I swam, then went and got changed (for real this time) And Zach, Nathan, Chloe, and Hailey were all riding with me. Yay fun.**

**So Zach ended up getting the front and the other four of us were squished in the back. In this order from right to left, Hailey, Chloe, Nathan, and me. All the way to Dairy Queen. Me and Hailey stole Zach and Nathan's sweatshirts too, so they stole ours. I was wearing Nathan's and he had mine. Hailey was wearing Zach's and he was wearing hers. And they had our names on them too. **

**So I was walking around with Wallen on my back, and Nathan had Sophia on his. It was the best meet ever. **

**Sorry for rambling on, you probably don't care, but if any of you are swimmers and you have funny meet stories, leave me a review about it. Or if you're just an athlete in general, or if you just have a funny story. If you want I can tell you another story next time too. Or if you have any questions about swimming and what I am talking about, feel free to ask!**

**Have a nice day! B-)**


End file.
